Category: Uncategorized

Small Snack

I was nearly killed by a toast crumb
And as I struggled for breath I thought this is how it ends;
With embarrassing toast —
Not even the cool kind with the sea salt and the avocado.

After 25 minutes or so the near death experience
Was just a small snack,
I barely even felt the sore
Lodged in the shame of my throat.

I was also nearly killed by a single step, a poor merge
And the way you left me behind,
But I keep returning carelessly
Forgetting the terror and the gasp

And the staggering humiliation of nearly dying
From hunger and haste
And the hubris of humanity,
Who knew all along it was toast.

Crickets

Saturday in August there’s a high pitched wheek of crickets and the lawn is patched with brown and I have the feeling everyone’s at brunch. I could head out for a bloody mary myself, or phone a friend. Something, though, is trying to be known. Even though it all feels familiar like I already know how the sun will set, and I already know the way the crow calls. I already know this day so I’d like a new one, please.

Sometimes it’s like this. Days hiccup drunkenly, skipping back in time. This one I’ve seen before. It happens near the end of things, and before the next; and it could go either way. Barefooted and unfettered, or silent and unmoored – it’s unwritten, unscripted, undone, and unimaginable. And in that unimagined way, it returns to a state that’s known. And so, an August day comes back, used before it starts.

Is there any comfort in that? The way the day unfolds like it always has? And when I hear nothing new, is that really all there is to hear? Beneath, beside, behind this day, is there another waiting?

Maybe that’s why September comes. To surprise us in spite of our August-y ways. But right now, here on this previous Saturday, I’m trying to listen.

What’s repeated and repeated and repeated? Something is trying to be known, and before the moon startles you again, the crickets stay.

The Wild

I fell in love slowly. Only once I understood the skies, and the storms, and the bend of the trees by the pond, and those by the bay, and those by the field.

It took a long time to know this wild space. The thicket I walked right past for years, until I noticed, finally, its small orange berries one lonely fall day. The squiggled tree where the egret sits, the pine tree where the owl calls, the way the grasses turn red in late August.  All of this I misunderstood, because I didn’t stand still, or stay quiet, or look up, or look closer.

Sometimes, years went by from the couch or the chair, and the world rose quickly from the pane of a window someone else put before me, or I put myself behind — and all that was wild went on without me. Elsewhere. On snow days and summer nights, in fleeting moments between staring at screens, I had dreams of lands I’d never know, and imagined beauty that belonged to everyone else. It’s true, I heard the peepers and the saw the full moon on the first warm night; even I could hear the loon cry, and feel the ancient yearn of a sky full of stars or swallows. Even then, the wild called to me.

But I didn’t know the way she was. That she was more than the backdrop for my morning commute, and that there was more to be known than a Saturday could teach. I didn’t know the way she was at all.

I fell in love slowly. Only once I saw the way she moves in solitude, by a grey sea, or green hill, or through the narrow path across the shadowed margins of the day. Only once I knew where the apple blossoms were, and the hollowed trunk, and the massive roots. I know now how the chill comes, the way the frost heaves, and all the ways the sky is blue. Like all great loves, I know the curve of her now. She is my home, now.  And I would be nowhere else but here, in this late afternoon light; wild, seen, known, and loved.

Monday in America

I stand at the beginning of the week, in the middle of the world, breathing the air we all breathe. And if your Monday looks more ambitious than mine, if it kickstarts your heart with a bell and a bull or a rabbit chase or a run, I may stare at the blur of your back while I stretch my sights toward some other reason to get out of bed, but still, when I wake my feet will land on August 1st, just like yours.

Maybe you stand outside the grocery store with a sign that says “2 kids: will work for food”. Maybe you’re in line at Starbucks, maybe packing for vacation, maybe scrolling through your phone wondering why the hell you are so stuck to this habit. Maybe you are sitting in a jail cell or grieving alone or dying in a hospital bed or a city street or a hot air balloon.

And if it is your last breath, let me take my first in your honor. Because on Mondays I have to remember that even the grasses aren’t free but sewn together at the roots and bent by the will of the wind and left to the mercy of the goats and the skies. On Mondays I have to remember that one cannot be free when others aren’t. On Mondays I have to rise to join you where we all live, or go back to sleep, soundly, curled up in a trump at the bottom of humanity. Because without the rest, Monday’s stay forever the morning you avoid; beheaded, dreaded, cleaved from the wisdom of what we welcome in.

Rise, now. Even though Monday has you in its clutches it’s held by all the others that come before and after and always. Live, now. Even though August begins for all of us, it ends too soon for too many. Wake, now. This is the only real way to be free.

Arrival

Post vacation is so hard. Two realities colliding – all that you are coming home to, all that you are leaving behind, both existing in the same moment. This is the day after, and the day before. And this is the day that’s particularly hard to get through.

I’m walking in large circles around my exhausted suitcase, contemplating unpacking. I’m walking in large circles around next steps, contemplating going back to bed.

My eyes keep tearing up. I’m lonely. I miss mother and my 5 brothers and sisters and their partners and spouses and kids and grandkids and the chaos that was a family vacation. It’s my first day home, and it’s just so quiet – just Gilligan snoring on the couch and the click of the keyboard to keep my company.
There were moments during the last 2 weeks when any silence sounded like heaven to me. All that clattering around in a tiled beach house – all those blaring rooms decorated in hospital pastels. Moments stuffed with too much happening, kitchens stuffed with too many people, lamps stuffed with too many seashells. (In case of deafening emergency, break glass and shove seashells in your ears).
The pace always changes on vacations, but for me it speeds up instead of slows down. Always places to be, places to go, places to arrive. Long lines at the dairy queen, impossible lines at the grocery store, endless lines of traffic across the bridge, on the beltway, through security. People everywhere, on every surface, in every conceivable corner. And someone always to love you, and for you to always love.

And then home.

Trying to settle in, I take a walk and two great herons rise above me, so close I can feel the air rush from their wings. The sky is an impossible neon blue and the breeze from the bay lifts me, after the airless, humid skies of North Carolina. But even here the heat has arrived. The tiger lilies are almost gone. Yarrow and toadflax and cow parsley are the sole survivors – ready for the driest, hottest days to come. The fields look spent and thirsty, the pond a sleepy green.

And the sound of my own heart is a surprise; leftover love spilling everywhere. I miss them all, but I’m grateful to be back. I’m somewhere between where I wanted to be, and where I need to go. I’m caught between breaths, in the bittersweet stillness of my own hushed and holy arrival home.

Small Snack

I was nearly killed by a toast crumb

And as I struggled for breath I thought this is how it ends;

With embarrassing toast —

Not even the cool kind with the sea salt and the avocado.

After 25 minutes or so the near death experience

Was just a small snack,

I barely even felt the sore

Lodged in the shame of my throat.

I was also nearly killed by a single step, a poor merge

And they way you left me behind,

But I keep returning carelessly

Forgetting the terror and the gasp

And the staggering humiliation of nearly dying

From hunger and haste

And the hubris of humanity,

Who knew all along it was toast.

Boxes & Bowls

Everything I write lately would put cornflakes to sleep. I try not to force it; I know it never works. I just need to show up and maybe something will magically rise, like tiny rainbow Trix bobbing to the surface.

These empty vessels where spoons hold air and stomachs growl concern me. I hate it when things get silent, and I don’t know where my next artistic bite will come from. I’m old enough to know it’s not permanent but still all that blank milky space is taunting me. The cupboards seem bare.

Which is strange, because a bazillion boxes are filling my head. I have boxes crammed with experience, (raisin bran), boxes full of fields (shredded wheat), boxes full of wishes, (lucky charms). I have boxes stacked with laughter (cheerios), and old memories (quisp), and crazy ass neurosis (clearly cuckoo for coco puffs). Don’t even ask how many boxes I have of half empty commitment (hey kashi, why don’t YOU go lean?!).

You’d think with all those boxes something might just pour out. But I’ve not an alpha-bit of confidence in my ability to write these days. And just for kix I’d love it if, just once, I could skip over this part; the one where I’m staring at an empty bowl in a morning fog without any idea where the day will take me.

Maybe I need to break a few eggs, travel the world and eat some Weetabix, leggo of my ego. Not sure. But if you care at all, send me a little snap, crackle and pop, would you? I’m feeling entirely stale.

The Pulse

The pulse is how we know we are here,
The place where our hearts belong
And blood flows
And beats skip and pound.

It’s where we no longer have to hide,
Racing toward the exit
Flushed with relief or red with demand
That what is real is finally being seen.

It’s where we go to find out,
That no matter who you are
Inside, when your wrist is held,
You’ll be known by the strength of your heart.

And when the pulse is taken
We may feel the shattering;
The thready truth of us,
The fragile, narrow, way we carry life —

One beat to the next to the next to the next
All connected at the pulse
And carried back to the heart
Of the broken world.

Common

There are peonies in the garden
But mostly I’m drawn to the clover and buttercups
Scattered across the field;
The way they appear from a distance to be more than they are,
The way we get up close and give them names;
Common, everyday ones
That you’d step right over
And chew
If you were a cow.

But these purple pom poms cheering in the green,
And these clever little yellow scoops
Caught my common heart, uncommonly;
In an unguarded moment
Before I remembered what was
Across the road and past the fence
Waiting to be named
Something new.

The Fall

I didn’t really think I was lonely until he came back into my life – glancing off it for few days – and leaving again. I’ve built a narrative around my life of an independent, strong woman who loves living alone. Beyond that, and more central than that, I’ve developed an empirical belief that solitude is essential for waking and being — for creativity, and meaning — and that the most complicated and satisfying relationship I will ever have, might just be with myself.

Some of my friends are skeptical of this. My words “well, actually I’m very happy and love living alone” are received as proof of denial. I can see their eyes grow soft with sympathy, or veiled with doubt. Others think it’s selfish, eccentric, and just plain odd that I am okay not dating, not going out, not trying to meet someone. They can’t fathom that one can deeply engage in the human experience without engaging in coupledom. Without the institution of marriage. Two by two seems to be the only path toward completion. It’s hard for others to see that there are already two – me, and the entire world around me. Me, and birdsong.

Obviously being alone can be hard. I’m not glamorizing it. Like all relationships, the one we have with ourselves is fraught with old patterns and nasty little dust ups and long periods of time when we don’t even speak to one another. And worse, there’s no one else to blame for the messy parts. Still, not being in a relationship with another has been fine with me, and in truth, it’s the way I have finally come to love who I am.

But then, what do I know? When he unexpectedly re-entered this vast and autonomous world, something shifted slightly on its axis — and moved subtly in his direction. Something that was centered, tilted toward something that was not. And then he was gone, and that was okay. Except that I am now leaning away from myself — reaching toward the universe out into space, and hearing nothing. Not even a ping from a distant planet.

After he left I was left with an ache inside. And I recognize this feeling instantly. It’s loneliness. Which of course brings into question all of my strong beliefs about being the wandering poet that wakes to birdsong and notebook and pen. Maybe I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be seen by another; but I feel open and soft and sad, suddenly. It’s like he grazed the outer rim and left a small wound, and light is pouring in from somewhere I barely remember; somewhere I’m not even sure I believe in. I’m so surprised by this yearning.

So here I am. I’m leaning in, but haven’t fallen. And on this wobbling axis, I’m left with all these spinning thoughts. Maybe that’s the only way I’ll learn to balance solitude with relationship; by leaning toward, while still staying within my own orbit. Maybe I need to adjust my position to allow for a wider view of the world. Maybe it’s okay to be lonely, and maybe I’m strong enough now to risk feeling that, to risk falling – after all, I know I’m strong enough to catch myself if I do.

But I wonder something else, too. Is it possible that without another heavenly body, you don’t know how centered you really are? Maybe it takes a shooting star to remember what it’s like to let go; to remember the blinding, free-fall of love. To remember that you can’t know the entirety of the world without letting it in, without dropping into it, without leaving all you know to be true behind, to allow the great unknown to arrive.

Just when you think you are a world unto yourself, you are reminded you are not. None of us can be complete, without risking the terrifying, and the glorious, fall.